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calimacSo there's this 35-minute fanboy Tolkien Jackson film online. One-line review: Don't bother. More boring than Peter Jackson at only a quarter the length.
Not that the outcome is a big surprise or anything like that, but in case anyone's concerned about possible spoilers, my conclusions on "How to make a movie of 'The Hunt for Gollum'" are behind the cut.
1. Peter Jackson begins his film with a Portentious Backstory, so begin your film with a Portentious Backstory.
2. Peter Jackson makes a solemn action-adventure film while minimizing Tolkien's moral underpinnings, so by all means make a solemn action-adventure film without any moral underpinnings. You've got your good guys and your bad guys, so leave it at that.
3. Peter Jackson's Aragorn mumbles, so your Aragorn should mumble.
4. Let's not even talk about the Orcs.
5. Jackson's Gandalf was too shiny, so dress your Gandalf in an old sack.
6. When filming an indoor conversation, take your production values from old Dr. Who serials, and your extras from science fiction conventions.
7. When filming two people sneaking up on each other in the woods, take your mise-en-scène from the "Those We Do Not Speak Of" sequences of M. Night Shyamalan's The Village.
8. When you finally show Gollum close up, show either your independence from Peter Jackson, or your inability to follow him closely enough, by modeling Gollum not on Andy Serkis, but on Anthony Hopkins playing Hannibal Lecter.
9. Introduce a Ranger whom Aragorn has never met, and who has only vaguely heard of his own Chieftain.
10. Have Aragorn carry Gollum around in a sack that Serkis's (or Tolkien's, for that matter) Gollum could easily have torn his way out of in one minute. (Tolkien's Aragorn made Gollum walk in front of him with a halter; this is obviously impossible if you're using a CGI Gollum and have virtually no CGI budget. But then, why does Gollum have to be CGI? Because Peter Jackson is God?)
11. Have Gollum steal fish from the Woodsmen's windowsills instead of drinking blood from cradles. Stabbing orcs is one thing, but this is just icky. Do not ask what the Woodsmen put the raw fish on the windowsill for. To cool off?
12. Foreshadowing! Have Aragorn see a Nazgul and tell Gandalf about it, even though neither of them should have any idea yet that the Nine are abroad.
13. It's the beginning of a Dark Age, so film everything Really Dark.
14. It is imperative to follow the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Fight rule: if the hero must single-handedly defeat a troupe of bad guys, the bad guys are required to attack him only one at a time. Everybody else has to stand around and wait their turn.
For my next trick, I hope to have a review of the new book actually by, you know, Tolkien.
Not that the outcome is a big surprise or anything like that, but in case anyone's concerned about possible spoilers, my conclusions on "How to make a movie of 'The Hunt for Gollum'" are behind the cut.
1. Peter Jackson begins his film with a Portentious Backstory, so begin your film with a Portentious Backstory.
2. Peter Jackson makes a solemn action-adventure film while minimizing Tolkien's moral underpinnings, so by all means make a solemn action-adventure film without any moral underpinnings. You've got your good guys and your bad guys, so leave it at that.
3. Peter Jackson's Aragorn mumbles, so your Aragorn should mumble.
4. Let's not even talk about the Orcs.
5. Jackson's Gandalf was too shiny, so dress your Gandalf in an old sack.
6. When filming an indoor conversation, take your production values from old Dr. Who serials, and your extras from science fiction conventions.
7. When filming two people sneaking up on each other in the woods, take your mise-en-scène from the "Those We Do Not Speak Of" sequences of M. Night Shyamalan's The Village.
8. When you finally show Gollum close up, show either your independence from Peter Jackson, or your inability to follow him closely enough, by modeling Gollum not on Andy Serkis, but on Anthony Hopkins playing Hannibal Lecter.
9. Introduce a Ranger whom Aragorn has never met, and who has only vaguely heard of his own Chieftain.
10. Have Aragorn carry Gollum around in a sack that Serkis's (or Tolkien's, for that matter) Gollum could easily have torn his way out of in one minute. (Tolkien's Aragorn made Gollum walk in front of him with a halter; this is obviously impossible if you're using a CGI Gollum and have virtually no CGI budget. But then, why does Gollum have to be CGI? Because Peter Jackson is God?)
11. Have Gollum steal fish from the Woodsmen's windowsills instead of drinking blood from cradles. Stabbing orcs is one thing, but this is just icky. Do not ask what the Woodsmen put the raw fish on the windowsill for. To cool off?
12. Foreshadowing! Have Aragorn see a Nazgul and tell Gandalf about it, even though neither of them should have any idea yet that the Nine are abroad.
13. It's the beginning of a Dark Age, so film everything Really Dark.
14. It is imperative to follow the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Fight rule: if the hero must single-handedly defeat a troupe of bad guys, the bad guys are required to attack him only one at a time. Everybody else has to stand around and wait their turn.
For my next trick, I hope to have a review of the new book actually by, you know, Tolkien.
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no subject
Date: 2009-05-06 09:44 pm (UTC):D
(I am amused -- by your critique. I've only looked at the trailer for THFG.)